Chapter 3: Chapter 3

One year later

Father slowly intensified our training from 5 minutes to 8 minutes until we reached 15 minutes. He taught us the imperial sword style after we completed 15 minutes of each training course, which took around 7 months.

Father trained me with a sword technique used by my family for generations called 'River Secret style' while my friends used their own family sword style after mastering the imperial sword style in 4 months. I can use the first three techniques which are splash, ripple and stream. Splash is a vertical slash. Ripple is a multiple chain attack. Stream is a combo attack comprised of one or more Ripple and Splash attacks.

I was ambidextrous in my past life and naturally I am born ambidextrous again, so it was easy to use the sword and execute sword techniques with my left hand. I also practiced ten stars swordsmanship: Constellation which is the first technique in ten stars swordsmanship style, but struggled since the first technique requires you to stab the opponent ten times in different locations in one second but I could do it two times in one second. So I changed it to slashing the opponent 10 times in one second since the original is designed  for the MMORPG and was able to do it 4 times in one second.

The techniques' name are odd because of the habits of swordsmen shouting the names of the attacks, which leads to the enemy getting a clue and react accordingly. Even if we shout our attacks, the enemy would be left confused.

He also allowed us to do mock one-on-one battles with each other to sharpen our close combat skills.

Mother slowly adjusted the distance of our targets till we could hit a bullseye 40 meters away. After approximately 9 months of hitting dummies, she switched our targets from dummies to live animals such as birds, rabbit, deer and boar which are all summoned by her. It's hard because we are used to targets that aren't moving and our new targets would run away, burrow, hide beneath objects and sometimes the boar would mock charge you.

We exceeded grandmother's expectation in six months in basic mana control, then she focused our training to master creating magic circles. She showed us a perfect magic circle, then she ordered us to replicate it. We were bad at it on our first try, so she told us to make large magic circles first so we could spot and fix the flaws in it by comparing it with her magic circle then make the standard size after perfecting a large magic circle. It took around one and a half month for me to perfect it while my friends took two months.

After completing the magic circle training, she tested my friends' magic affinity with 7 different colored magic stones before teaching us how to cast spells.

She handed 7 different colored magic stones which consists of red, blue, brown, green, yellow, black and white to Alice.

"What is this for?" Alice asked.

"This is to test your affinity with the basic elements of magic. Red is for fire, blue is for water, brown is for earth, yellow for lightning, green is for wind, white for light, and black for dark," grandmother replied.

"How do you test your affinity using that stone?" John asked.

"You pour some mana to the stone, and if it lights up, it means you have an affinity towards that element. If it does not light up, it means you have no affinity with that element. If all the stones light up halfway, this means the person is a generalist," grandmother replied.

"What happens if you have an affinity towards a certain element?" Josh asked.

"You gain bonuses such as faster spell mastery, quicker casting, heightened magic resistance, stronger and more stable spells and if you have two or more affinity, you will be able to cast advanced elements," grandmother replied.

"How about if you don't have an affinity for the element you want to cast?" Jack asked.

"You will be penalized, but you will still be able to cast it. The penalties are slower casting speed, slower spell mastery, lowered magic resistance, and weaker spell power," grandmother replied.

"How about generalists? What advantages and disadvantages do they have?" I asked.

"Generalists can cast all basic elemental spells. The problem is they can't access advanced elements, since it needs you to have a strong affinity with two compatible elements to access it. They learn at a normal speed and cast at a normal speed. What sets them apart from each other is their talent, intelligence, hard work, and effort," grandmother replied.

"What is more common generalist, or someone who has a strong affinity towards one or more basic elements?" I asked.

"Generalists are more common because humans developed strong affinities toward an element after the gods have blessed them and gained additional powers. This happened during the Age of Gods around millions of years ago and they helped the gods win the war against the demon god and the alliance of demons and devils," grandmother replied.

"Can humans use magic before being blessed by the gods?" I asked.

"Yes, but they developed and used magic spells that can be used for everyday life, such as food creation and fertilizer," grandmother replied.

"Those are spells are very advanced, so that means ancient humans are remarkable?" I asked.

"On paper, yes, the reality is they can create raw meat and vegetables that are tasteless and contained fewer nutrients compared to the original, not cooked meals and the fertilizer they create is bone meal and dead leaves," grandmother replied.

"Why would the gods need the help of humans if they are that weak?" Alice asked.

"Gods and Angels needed to materialize physically on this planet since they are always in their spiritual form in heaven, so half of their power is used to maintain their physical. Their enemies, the Demons and Devils possessed humans and other races forcefully and fight until said body can't longer host them while they believed it should not be forced so a handful of them have a host. They solved this problem by blessing the other races with additional powers and knowledge to be able to fight the demons and devils. Some gods lost influence and their followers were killed because of infighting and power struggle. Coincidentally, the humans are one of the few races left that the other gods did not bless and were even ignored, so there really isn't an established religion. Some gods who lost were Onos, the god of light, Ibris, the god of afterlife and Amis, the god of death, to name a few. These gods saw an opportunity to establish their own religion with the help of humans and blessed them. Eventually, the humans who were blessed became heroes and spread the name of the god and the ones they rescued became devoted followers, which then established a religion. Some heroes and devotees established a kingdom, built places of worship and conquered other countries to expand their territory, gain more resources and, most importantly, broaden the influence of their religion through religious conversion," grandmother replied.

"What happened to those religions? How did the crab religion become the largest and most influential?" I asked.

"The gods won the war and sealed off the demon god but, they were severely weakened after the war and got stuck in heaven unable to generate their physical form. Gradually, their influence became weaker due to corruption, greed, and scandals that plagued their religion. It also did not help that there were no common enemy for other religions to unite and set aside their differences in teachings and beliefs which lead to power struggles around the world and eventually a holy war that lead to the destruction of some religions. The rise of Maple was the sole reason the crab religion became the largest and most influential religion in the world," grandmother replied.

"Who are the Maple? Are they powerful?" I asked.

"For now, they are one of the four major powers in the world alongside the gods who rule the heavens, demons who rule the demon continent, and devils who rule the 9 levels of hell. I will explain their history when you are powerful enough. Alice, you can now start the magic affinity test," grandmother replied.

Alice nodded.

She poured mana into the stones one by one. Five stones lighted which are red, blue, yellow, brown and green.

Josh did the same process. Three stones lighted which are yellow, blue, and green.

Jack repeated the same process. Four stones lighted which are brown, red, green, and blue.

John carried out the same process. All the stones lighted up halfway.

Mark replicated the same process. Three stones lighted which are green, blue, and yellow.

"Everyone's finished the magic affinity test. We will now move on to Spell casting test," grandmother said.

"How about Felix? He hasn't completed the magic affinity test," Mark replied.

"I already knew his magic affinity because it is inherited from your parents, but since everyone wanted to know. Felix, go test your magic affinity," grandmother said.

I duplicated the same process. All the stones lighted up.

My friends kinda look upset.

"Today I am going to teach you how to cast some simple elemental spells and a non-elemental reconnaissance spell," grandmother said.

She showed us how to cast tier 1 spells: fireball, waterball, scan, spark, earth wall, windcutter and sand golem.

Waterball is a slow long-range spell, blue color, and low mana cost. It is often used to create safe drinking water or water crops.

Spark is an extremely fast short-range spell, the shape is a bolt of white small lightning, and low mana cost.

Fireball is a fast long-range spell, red-orange color, and low mana cost.

Windcutter is a fast long-range spell, its shape is a small green crescent, and low mana cost.

Earth wall is a defensive spell with a length of 3 meters, a width of 1 meter, a height of 1 meter, brown color, and a low mana cost.

Scan is a wide area reconnaissance spell where the user scans the surrounding area. The area of the spell depends on the abilities of the user.

Sand golem is a summoning spell where the user creates a golem out of hardened sand. The mana capacity of the user limits the size of the golem they could make.

"Did everyone understand how to cast the spells I just showed?" grandmother asked.

We nodded.

Grandmother smiled and created dummies 5 meters away from us.

"Use these dummies to practice casting the spells I just showed to improve your casting speed and spell mastery," grandmother said.

We followed her instructions and began casting spells.

At first, I can summon a 1 meter golem in one minute that would last an hour before crumbling away and takes half of my mana capacity, scan 15 meters away and cast the other spells in 15 seconds. After four and a half months, I sped up the summoning to 30 seconds, cast the other spells in 7 seconds, and scan 100 meters away. The sand golem I could summon is now 2 meters tall, lasts 4 hours and takes one-third of my mana capacity.

According to my grandmother, the more you use a certain spell, the faster you can cast it and the more powerful it becomes. Also, if you have mastered a certain spell, you can cast it instantaneously, giving your opponents no time to react or counter it.

Grandmother would teach me how to read and write the ancient language my family speaks and the modern alphabet they use here whenever we couldn't train outside because the weather was poor.

6 months have passed.

Our overall close combat skills have drastically improved. Father also taught us how to coat swords and our body with mana, map reading, basic survival skills, camping, fishing, making traps, pick locking, hide and use hidden daggers and climbing.

Coating swords with mana boosts its durability, avoids chipping the blade, produces more powerful and destructive attacks, and wound or kill beings that are normally impervious to physical attacks.

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Coating your body with mana boosts your body's capabilities by multiple times, overall magic resistance and physical resistance. It stacks with other spells that also enhance your physical prowess.

Hunting live animals with the bow immensely improved our stamina, speed, agility, dexterity, endurance, balance, and strength. We learned how to aim with unstable positions, hit fast moving targets, track targets in unfamiliar terrain, shooting while moving around and use the wind to our advantage. She also taught us how to coat arrows with mana to enhance its penetration power and lessen the effects of rain, gravity, wind resistance and drag, allowing it to travel much greater speeds.

My friends can now comfortably access their full mana capacity whenever they want, and they still need to practice mana control daily, because their mana capacity is still growing every day. I can control half of my mana capacity as it is a lot larger than my friends and it is also one of the side effects of my soul getting damaged from being transported and reincarnated in this world. Grandmother taught us new tier one and two spells: bubble bomb, frostbite, wind bullet, quicksand, electric shock, ice shards, pyroblast, paralyze, and water cannonball.

Water cannonball is a fast medium-range spell that shoots a high pressure ball of water at the opponent and has a medium mana cost.

Paralyze is a tier 2 extremely fast medium-range spell, its shape is a small jagged yellow lightning, and low mana cost. Enemies hit by this spell will become paralyzed, and those with high enough resistance can resist its effects.

Pyroblast is a tier 2 spell, and it is the better version of fireball with more destructive potential, and has a medium mana cost.

Ice shards is a tier 1 fast medium-range spell that shoots multiple ice shards at the opponent and has a low-high mana cost (depending on the number of shards you create).

Quicksand is a tier 1 trap spell that restricts the movement of your opponent by sucking them in deeper and has a low mana cost.

Electric shock is a tier 2 spell, low mana cost, and it is the improved version of spark.

Frostbite is a tier 2 spell that freezes your enemy's skin and has a low mana cost. It works better in low temperature environments and wet enemies.

Wind bullet is a tier 2 spell that shoots high-speed, high pressure air bullets and has a low mana cost.

Bubble bomb is a tier 1 spell that creates hundreds of small bubbles that explode when popped, which causes a chain explosion that covers a small area and it has a low mana cost.

The tier two spells take me 18 seconds to cast while my friends take longer than that. The new tier one spells take 10 seconds.

I experimented with my sand golem by adding multiple layers onto it. First, I create the standard sand golem, add four inches of hardened mud and add two inches of stone to create the last layer. I call the process multi layering. It solves the lack of durability and firepower of the sand golem while remaining nimble and flexible. The entire process and summoning takes one minute to finish, and it needs to be defended because it is vulnerable to attacks. It takes almost all of my mana to create it.

I got stuck and can't improve my three seconds casting time for tier 1 spells any further, and sand golem is stuck at 15 seconds. The maximum area I could scan is 200 meters. So I decided to ask grandmother for some advice.

"Grandmother, I can't improve my casting time and my scan area has also reached its limitations. Can you give me some advice?" I asked.

"You already reached the limitation of the casting speed and the area you can scan with the staff. Your soul hasn't finished healing while you might not feel fatigue anymore. It still affects your mana control. I am impressed. I thought you would reach three second casting time with the help of a staff in casting tier one spells at eight years old. You should remember this: no matter how good your equipment is, it still has its own limitations on how fast it can create a spell. Even the best equipment you can find in this world can't help you cast tier 10 spells instantaneously," she replied.

"What should I do next?" I asked.

"Improve your casting time on tier 2 spells to 10 seconds and then we will start the last phase of your training, which is sharpening the magical aura of your spells," she replied.

"Why are my friends taking so long to improve their casting times?" I asked.

"It all comes down to family lineage. Our ancestors are mostly marked reincarnation like you, and we gain a lot more bonuses from having a strong affinity for all elements. I already know that you have questions regarding our race, since our shadows can move independently from us and even exist with no source of light. Let's say for now that we are related to the abyss, and this is just our physical form, while our shadow is our abyssal form," she replied.

"I see. Thanks grandma," I said.

I returned to my position to continue training.

It took five months to reach the 10 second casting time for tier 2 spells. My friends also improved in that time span, albeit not as fast as I did. They could rival my casting speed in certain elements they specialize except for John, who is above average in casting speed and mana control.

Grandmother also shortened our sword and bow training to an hour each as we already passed her standards, then lengthened the time we spent in our magic training.

We were practicing as normal and hurling spells at dummies made by grandmother.

"Can I get your attention, please?" She asked.

We stopped and noticed a new set of dummies.

"Is that the same dummies we routinely destroy?" Alice asked.

"See for yourself," grandmother replied.

I threw a pyroblast at it and, as expected, it was a direct hit. After the smoke and dust have settled, the dummy was not scratched or blown to pieces.

I investigated with my silver eye and saw that this dummy emits a magical aura.

"Grandma, I thought magical auras aren't useful in protecting you?" I asked.

"It depends if you are a living thing or non-living thing," she replied.

"How are they different?" Alice asked.

"Humans and other races can store mana inside their body, and the magical aura they emit from their body is a small portion of the total mana they possess. Animals and plants can't store mana internally, so when they develop a magical aura out of nowhere, their bodies will undergo massive changes, and after a few generations of evolution, they will become a magical beast or magical plant. Most of the animals you see are either domesticated or reproduce rapidly that it makes it hard for magical beasts to outcompete them and drive them to extinction. It's also the same with plants. Then there are some species of animals and plants that can't develop a magical aura and evolve, despite living in places with high concentrations of mana for a very long time," she replied.

"How about the effects of magical aura on inanimate objects?" I asked.

"For inanimate objects, they get heavily altered when they get formed in areas with high mana concentration. It will get magical properties that are normally not present. There are two types of magical property, which are primary and secondary. Primary is the one the material gained while being formed, while secondary is gained by refining it by a crafter with sufficient skill. The quality of material will determine how many primary and secondary effects it will gain. For example, the silver short sword that Mark and Josh are using is made from a silver magical alloy. Normally silver is too soft and brittle to be made into a weapon, but since it got formed in an area with high mana concentration, it transformed into a magical alloy and became a thousand times stronger than the original. The silver magical alloy has 3 primary magical properties, which are regeneration negation, true strike and holy touch. Both the silver short swords have 2 secondary effects," she replied.

"What does regeneration negation, true strike, and holy touch do?" Alice asked.

"As the name suggests, regeneration negation inflicts wounds that do not heal. True strike allows you to hit and touch the enemy even if they are not in their physical form, which means whatever form your enemy is, your attacks will not miss unless they physically dodge your attack. Holy touch applies light elemental damage to each attack," she replied.

"I remember you said to me that the last phase of our training would be sharpening the magical aura of our spells. How do we do that?" I asked.

"Follow my instructions," she replied.

I nodded

"Create the spell you used and not fire it. Then Create another magic circle and instead of creating another spell, let it focus on making the magical aura surrounding your spell bigger and more pronounced," she said.

II followed her instructions and once I felt my spell, got a stronger aura than the dummy. I fired it and it got blown to pieces.

My friends were amazed by what I did.

"Everybody listen to my explanation," grandmother said.

We nodded.

"Sharpening auras of your spells is one of the quickest ways to counter magic resistance as it enhances magic penetration of your spell. Even if a magic armor can block tier 1 spells, tier 1 spells can penetrate it when it has a stronger aura than the magic armor. The biggest problem of magic armors is durability, as it can shield you from a limited amount of spells, and even with the best magic armor you can find in the world can't help you survive a direct hit from a tier 10 spell. This is also true with magic weapons, as you can launch an attack once before it breaks and requires a huge amount of mana to use it. Its advantage is you can launch a powerful spell stored inside the weapon without casting it," she said.

"How do you make magic equipments?" I asked.

"It's the same with making an armor or weapon. You find a magical alloy, heat it and hammer it to shape. The problem is magical alloys emit weak auras to strengthen it, you need to refine it and it requires advanced mana control to do it. To forge magic equipments, you need to have top tier blacksmith skills and can cast tier 7 or higher spells. I believe there are around 100 individuals in the world can make it and 5 of them can make the highest grade," she replied.

"My sword is made up of a Silver magical alloy. Does that mean it can store a spell inside it?" Mark asked.

"No, because it is not the type of magical alloy that is used for a magic weapon and it does not have a spell crystal embedded in it. The magical alloy used is typically made up of two or more elements, like lithium-iron etc.," grandmother replied.

"Isn't lithium-iron used to make batteries and what is a spell crystal?" I asked.

"Spell crystals can store spells inside them. The higher the quality, the higher the tier of spell it can store inside it. The problem is, it needs to have a supplier of mana, and the spell inside it can be used once. That is also the reason magic weapons can be used once. Lithium-iron is indeed a battery because it can store huge amounts of mana inside it, which makes it compatible to be used as a magic weapon," she replied.

"How long will we do this training?" Alice asked.

"We have six months left before the magic capability test. The first five months will be spent doing this magical aura sharpening training for five months and the rest will be spent to prepare for the ultimate test," she replied.

"What goal do we set this time?" John asked.

"After five months of training, you need to reach at least 10 seconds or faster for tier 1 and 20 seconds for tier 2," she replied.

We nodded.

Grandmother replaced the old regular dummies with the dummies I destroyed earlier.

End of Chapter 3.

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